Walking the Capital Ring - Section 15

London, UK

Tuesday, September 13th 2016, 09:11 BST

Section 15

In this last section, we walked around London City airport. Well, sorta. Starting off at Beckton Park, and its Jake Russell Walk we started the last section of the Capital Ring. After Beckton Park, we walked through new Beckton Park as well, before coming to Cyprus DLR station.

The Capital Ring as mapped on OpenStreetMap, diverged from the route on the TFL site, and the signage on the ground. Instead of following the Royal Albert Way, it no goes through the University of East London and along the Royal Albert Dock for a while. I can imagine this being a little nicer than a dual carriage way.

At the end of the path along the dock, we had a little stint through an industrial estate, with a radar mast in sight at the end. The radar mast was straight on the Thames, and that point ended up being the furthest East on the Capital Ring: Galleons Point. The tide on the Thames was low, exposing loads of shopping trolleys and other rubbish.

From there, we crossed two sets of locks. A small one, and the much larger King George the 5th lock. Galleons Point is another new development. Now along the Thames, we passed by the Royal Victoria Gardens and ended up at North Woolwich.

The old station at North Woolwich at one time housed a museum, but that is now closed. Close behind it are Crossrail works, where a tunnel under the Thames for the new railway starts.

At this point, we could have taken the ferry across to Woolwich, and the end of the Capital Ring. Instead, we decided to walk through the Woolwich Foot Tunnel. This and the Greenwich Foot Tunnel are the only two pedestrian only tunnels under the Thames, built in the early 1900s. Apparently, photography is forbidden, but I only found that out while writing up this blog post!

At the other end of the tunnel, we walked the last 50 meters to the end of the section, and with that, the Capital Ring!